Believing in Collaborative and Integrated Security Solutions: McAfee

Data Security have become a key driver of IT related priorities. In an exclusive conversation with Girish Gargeshwari, Director-Sales & Channels, India & SAARC, McAfee, Faiz Askari of SMEStreet found security trends, market opportunities and preparedness of McAfee for the Indian market.

The edited excerpts of the interaction:

Faiz Askari: What is different about the new McAfee?

Girish Gargeshwari: Our market leadership has made us one of the largest dedicated security company in the world. With the new McAfee, the company has outlined a new strategic vision, focused on innovation, trust, and collaboration. McAfee’s new design reflects our belief that ‘Together Is Power’, a concept which pays tribute to the power of collaboration and is central to the brand. By the end of 2017, we want to be the No. 1 security provider and partner to over 80 percent of the Global 2000.

With our robust product portfolio, McAfee is well positioned to be #1 security player to serve the Indian market and cover 60% of the ET500 companies.  We have a strong presence across key verticals like Telecom, BFSI, IT & ITES, and Government with 1500+ partners.

FA: What will be the key focus areas for McAfee in the coming years?

GG: At McAfee, we understand that both technology and cybercriminals are in a race to evolve faster than each other. We believe that this race against cyber criminals can only be won with two things: collaboration & talent. McAfee believes that collaboration and integration is more important than ever to create a strong security posture.

At the core, our mission is to enable security devices to share intelligence and orchestrate security operations in real time. To enable such industry leading collaboration, McAfee’s Open DXL leverages the McAfee Data Exchange Layer (DXL), which many vendors and enterprises already utilize, and delivers a simple, open path for integrating security technologies regardless of vendor. Open DXL enables unprecedented collaboration in an open, real-time system. Even though there is no silver bullet for security, McAfee believes in providing the best protection for its customers with the ability to co-exist and provide an open ecosystem for integrations.

We will also continue with our focus on delivering a next-generation architecture, with endpoint and cloud as security control points, combined with actionable threat intelligence, analytics, and orchestration.

FA: Do you think the Indian SME ecosystem is on the radar of cybercriminals?

GG: India is on the third spot in the largest start-up ecosystems in the world lists as per a study done by Assocham in association with Thought Arbitrage Research Institute. This is proof enough that the start-up scenario in the nation has more, many more success stories yet to be written apart from some well know unicorns who have already taken flight.

How well placed is the SME segment when it comes to their security preparedness?

Smaller organisations generally have limited resources or relatively smaller IT support teams whose main activity is to keep basic systems functioning, rather than understanding the cyber security threat. This has caused SMEs to become highly susceptible to cyber breaches as hackers face less resistance in compromising systems and stealing valuable data. With their sights set on getting the most out of their security budgets, SMEs often treat a well-rounded security posture as secondary priority.  However, their business, intellectual property and customer data need to be protected as much as that in any large organization.

What are some of the key challenges faced by SMEs in the adoption of an efficient security infrastructure?

All businesses face security risks when it comes to networking, the Internet, and the cloud. However, small and medium enterprises often face bigger risks than their larger counterparts do. This is largely a resource issue — most SMEs simply do not have the money or the staff to employ the same advanced security measures as large companies. SMEs IT professionals understand the risks, but their struggle lies in convincing senior executives of the threat. Constant education and training around IT security is necessary to help reduce human error.

With the proliferation of SMEs in the regional markets of India, we also look forward to broaden our tier-2 partner play in the market. McAfee is tailoring partner programs with distributors across APAC and India, to provide benefits to partners by adding value to our security stack of products, solutions and services. We consider channels as the security architecture for SMEs in regional markets.

Any advice you would like to give for SMEs on approaching security?

Big-company thinking is about maximising the security budget, whereas SMEs are frugal, and must think about the customers. We believe that significant education and support of SMEs is needed in order for the benefits from technological solutions can be fully realized. In this scenario, we see that the overall demand for managed security services in India and globally has increased as organizations seek to remediate network security through outsourcing this requirement. With constant threats lurking around the corner, organisations must be quick to understand the cyber security issues facing them, otherwise they could see systems breached or even having customers look elsewhere to better cater for their security needs.

The endpoint space is evolving quickly, and business owners need to think about the risks of tomorrow, today. The protection you choose needs to offer scalable security, with better capability around manageability, multiple deployment methods and compliance. McAfee’s ENS 10.5 takes an even more vigorous and proactive approach to combatting ransomware and protecting customer endpoints.